作者： root

CIA World Factbook, trusted source of knowledge about nations, shuttered by Trump administration

April 6, 2026 5:57 AM EDT / AP

If you attended school any time after the Nixon administration, you likely beheld at some point the CIA World Factbook, a map and reference manual of Planet Earth and its inhabitants nearly everyone could agree on.

Maybe you read parts of it from a floppy disk or a CD-ROM for that social studies project due tomorrow. Or scanned its list of countries for Latvia, because that’s the country you’re representing next week in Model U.N. Even better, you wandered Earth in your imagination as you held the physical Factbook in your own hands, unfolding its maps and understanding, perhaps for the first time, that the thumbs-up gesture your friends flash each other is considered an obscene insult in parts of the Middle East, Europe and Argentina.

Who knew? The Factbook and its readers did, for more than six decades.

Its authors – some of the world’s best intelligence-gatherers, who contributed thousands of their own photos – kept the curated database updated and online for public use at no charge. The reasons stated were geopolitical and philosophical. But since we’re talking about facts, it also is true that the Factbook went public in 1975 with lofty statements of purpose at a time when Congress was revealing abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA.

“We share these facts with the people of all nations in the belief that knowledge of the truth underpins the functioning of free societies,” the CIA itself explained in its pages.

The spy agency isn’t sharing them anymore.

On Feb. 4, the Trump administration abruptly shuttered the widely accepted account of humanity and its flags, nations, customs, militaries and borders. The CIA framed the move as one of progress for an agency whose core mission has changed.

A great wave of grief rose from Factbook fans. Many said they mourned an America that valued knowledge for its own sake. Some saw darker forces at work under a president whose administration has pointed to – in times of war and peace – “alternative facts.”

“Stay curious,” the CIA advised in its “fond farewell” to the Factbook.

And, it might have added: Good luck figuring out what’s true from the wild and frequently inaccurate world of the internet and artificial intelligence.

Decades before Google became an everyday verb, there was the Factbook.

How the Factbook got its start

Its origin story is rooted in the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, a U.S. intelligence failure that inspired a more coordinated approach to gathering and organizing information on America’s enemies. The Joint Army Navy Intelligence Studies was born and was the country’s first interdepartmental basic intelligence program. But by 1946, national security experts agreed that “the conduct of peace involves all countries, all human activities – not just the enemy and his war production,” in the words of one, George S. Pettee.

The job of gathering basic intelligence on other countries was assigned to the newly minted CIA in 1947, according to the agency’s website.

The Cold War exposed the ongoing need for a one-stop source of basic intelligence – and an opportunity for what in 1971 became the unclassified Factbook. It was released to the public four years later.

In addition to becoming useful to students, it held geopolitical influence. The Factbook showed off American intelligence capabilities to the former Soviet Union and other enemies. Being included in it could confer legitimacy upon a nation or an opposition party. And it was ironic that an agency founded on the need to know and keep secrets was sharing so much data – called “basic intelligence” – with the public.

The Factbook also likely served as a boost to the CIA’s public image and put distance between it and other intelligence agencies tarnished by congressional investigations. In 1975, Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, convened a panel that held more than 100 public hearings, many televised, of the most significant oversight of intelligence agencies since World War II.

In 1976, the Church Committee reported widespread abuse by the CIA, IRS, the National Security Agency and FBI, including the revelation of the CIA’s “Family Jewels.” That was an internal account of illegal CIA activities, such as spying on American activists and an assassination plot against Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

Also in 1975, what would become the CIA World Factbook went public, ascending as a reliable research tool often recommended in class projects. There was never confirmation that the bad press inspired the wide release of the Factbook, but doing so around the same time fit the CIA’s need to rehab its brand.

In 1981, the CIA renamed the publication The World Factbook and in 1997, it leapt online. The CIA has described it as representing “a tremendous culmination of efforts from some of our country’s brightest analytic minds.”

Reactions across the globe

News of the Factbook’s end shocked more than just U.S. students and researchers. It was picked up by news outlets abroad. The story shot across social media, with Reddit users pointing each other to archived Factbooks and racing to set up and identify other sources of unbiased information that might suffice.

Isabel Altamirano, chemistry librarian assistant professor at Auburn University in Alabama, said the information is still out there but “it’ll be harder to find.” University libraries, for example, offer similar resources to students, who get access through their tuition.

“It was so easy, because it was all in one place,” she said in an interview, noting that on Feb. 4, when she saw the news, she rushed to delete the Factbook from a list of resources for her students in a business communications class.

Fundamentally, one analyst said, a Factbook assembled by a government agency with secret agendas and shadowy methods might never have been unbiased in the first place.

“The compilers aren’t, nor can they be expected to be, neutral,” said Binoy Kampmark, a professor of global, urban and social studies at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. Mourning its loss, he wrote in an email, would be “misplaced.”

The Factbook, he added, might be better saved as a historical document.

Its last publication on Feb. 4 is already outdated, according to an archived version: Under Iran, the country’s head of government is still listed as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei was reported killed March 1 in U.S. and Israeli strikes. And the world changed once again, this time without the Factbook to note it.

GOP races to pass ICE, Border Patrol funding bill as priorities pile up, divisions emerge

April 6, 2026 5:30am EDT / Fox News

Thune warns Republicans to keep expectations realistic on the fast-tracked bill

By Alex Miller , Adam Pack Fox News

A party-line tactic to ram legislation through Congress and bypass the Senate filibuster has become a dumping ground for Republicans’ legislative priorities throughout the year.

Now, as Democrats refuse to fund immigration operations, Republicans are once again readying a budget reconciliation package. The hard part will be getting enough of the GOP on the same page to craft a bill that can pass and survive the strict rules underpinning the process.

Republicans used the same process to pass President Donald Trump “big, beautiful bill” last year. It’s a time-consuming, labor-intensive legislative maneuver that nearly blew up and could fail unless both the Senate and House align on what exactly they want to include.

SENATE PASSES BILL TO FUND MOST OF DHS AFTER HOUSE GOP CAVES

President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington.(Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

Trump officially backed using reconciliation again this week as a way to skirt Democrats’ refusal to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as Congress inches closer to ending the ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.

Trump demanded that Republicans get the bill on his desk by June 1.

“We are going to work as fast and as focused as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Still, Republicans have viewed reconciliation as a vehicle to tackle fraud, affordability, Trump’s tariff authorities, additional tax provisions, healthcare, funding for the Iran war, supplemental agriculture spending and election integrity measures in the months since passing the “big, beautiful bill.”

DHS SHUTDOWN BREAKTHROUGH COMES AT COST FOR REPUBLICANS AS FUNDING FIGHTS NEARS END

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Republicans need to “keep our expectations realistic.”(Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has warned that if reconciliation is going to work — especially given the limited timeframe lawmakers have to start and finish the process — Republicans need to “keep our expectations realistic.”

“Our theory of the case behind all this was to keep that thing as narrow and focused as possible, and that maximizes the speed at which we can do it and the support for it,” Thune said.

“There will probably be some attempts to add things,” he continued. “There are things out there that, obviously, many of us are interested in. But on a reconciliation vehicle like this — which we need to move with haste, as the president has pointed out — it’s probably not a likely magnet for all these other issues.”

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told voters at an event this week in South Carolina that he is eyeing two new reconciliation packages, which could ease concerns about cramming all the GOP’s priorities into one massive bill.

GOP RAILS AGAINST ‘S— SANDWICH’ DEAL AS ALL EYES TURN TO HOUSE TO END DHS SHUTDOWN

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., walks to the Senate chamber for votes after meeting behind closed doors with fellow Republicans on the Homeland Security budget stalemate, at the Capitol in Washington, March 26, 2026.(J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

“We want to do it quick — ICE, Border Patrol — fund it as much as you can, multi-year,” Graham said. “Then there’s another one coming. I just made news. There’s another one coming in the fall, and that’s going to be about going after fraud.”

House Republicans spent their recent policy retreat earlier this year pushing a so-called “reconciliation 2.0,” gearing up to load the package with several provisions that could drain time and struggle to earn support in the Senate — where strict guidelines could kill proposals entirely if they don’t comply with the rules.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which has long called for a second reconciliation bill, also wants to add proposals addressing affordability concerns.

“We support pursuing funding for military readiness and Homeland Security through this legislative process, while simultaneously codifying the president’s agenda to deliver lower costs for working families,” the RSC Steering Committee said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

Some Republicans are also pushing to include the latest policy fight: the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. The voter ID and citizenship verification legislation has no chance of passing the Senate given unified Democratic opposition.

It’s also unlikely to survive the Senate’s reconciliation rules, which allow only provisions that directly impact spending.

“I think we have to set our sights a little bit lower on this reconciliation bill,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital. “It’s got to be targeted to fund ICE for 10 years — I think that’s the number one thing for us. If we can nibble at the edges of the SAVE Act, that would be great, but the parliamentarian is not going to let us do the SAVE Act. That’s just an impossibility.”

Some of the loudest proponents of the bill in the House GOP acknowledge that adding the SAVE Act to reconciliation would be a challenge — largely because they would prefer to keep the bill intact and push it through the Senate.

“Look, it’s time for them to do a walk-and-talk and filibuster, and let’s make this thing happen,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said. “The American people are watching — piecing it together just to try to get a piece.”

Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.

分析：特朗普反复威胁要放弃霍尔木兹 动摇国际对美信心

2026年4月6日 18:58 / 联合早报

霍尔木兹海峡承载着全球约五分之一的石油流量，伊朗封锁这条关键航道后，全球油价飙涨。图为4月3日，巴基斯坦卡拉奇一家加油站内的情景，电单车骑士和驾车人士在石油运输受阻后，竞相排队赶着添油。 （法新社）

（华盛顿彭博电）中东冲突爆发以来，面对伊朗牢牢钳制且似在无限拖延战事，美国总统特朗普多次威胁要放弃保护霍尔木兹海峡；这番表态犹如彻底背离美国数十年来维护海上航道畅通的政策，动摇世界对美国的信心。

全球价值35万亿美元（约45万亿新元）的商品贸易，八成通过海运运输。霍尔木兹海峡则承载着全球约五分之一的石油流量。因此，哪怕美国只恫言要降低对霍尔木兹海峡的安全保障，也可能动摇世界经济支柱，以及美国自身的财富与权力根基。

自二战以来，美国长期凭借海军力量，在全球公海威慑袭击、打击海盗，力阻任何国家企图限制公海合法通行。这些安全保障，使石油、商品和原材料，足以在极少摩擦与冲突之下，顺畅地跨境流通。

美国退役海军中将米勒说：“维护霍尔木兹海峡商业航运自由通行，是这场冲突攸关的更为重大的原则问题。若无法保障霍尔木兹海峡的航行自由，全球各地的航行自由都将面临风险。”

美国能否有效管控战争后果 各国疑虑加剧

欧洲和亚洲一些官员受访时说，这场冲突已削弱各国对美国作为公海保护者的信任，引发对能源价格的担忧，改变了关键咽喉要道周围的安全考量，并加深对华盛顿能否有效管控战争后果的疑虑。

五角大楼发言人受询时未直接回答美国是否仍承诺确保航行自由，仅表明军方“仍在就霍尔木兹海峡问题，为总统提供多种选项”。

在美国缺乏明确方案的情况下，一些依赖贸易的小国正推动建立多国联合应对机制。阿联酋星期二（3月31日）呼吁联合国授权采取包括武力的选项来重开霍尔木兹海峡；英国星期四（4月2日）召集40多个美国盟友代表，商讨以非军事手段说服德黑兰恢复贸易。

根据《联合国海洋法公约》确立的原则，霍尔木兹海峡和马六甲海峡等咽喉要道的船舶自由通行权受到保护。美国虽不是缔约国，但它在条约起草过程中发挥了关键作用，美国海军也一直是这些规则的主要执行者。

这些规则包括禁止沿海国对在公海之间航行的船只实施管制，即使航线穿过本国领海也一样。伊朗试图阻止船只在霍尔木兹海峡通行，或向商船收取“通行费”，都是对这一体系的公然挑战。

对此，特朗普时而主张由美国控制这条水道，时而又建议让其他国家承担相关责任。

航运和石油市场分析人士指出，即使战火平息，混乱局面也可能持续。因为若停火协议未包含重启海峡通行的具体计划，这一战略动脉，恐将长期受控于德黑兰，延长冲击效应。

美国外交政策研究所国家安全项目非常驻高级研究员萨利斯伯里说：“如果美国连霍尔木兹海峡的航行自由都无法保障，那还怎么阻止中国海军在南中国海进一步推进？这是个令人担忧的先例。”

美国立场摇摆 促各国重构安全战略

美国立场摇摆不定，已开始影响各国对安全战略的思考。

官员说，这可能促使各国在马六甲海峡等咽喉要道周边加强安保实力，并更紧密协调以维护国际法下的海洋规范。当前冲突也反映，只要军力够硬、政治意愿够强，就可能控制关键水道。

欧洲对霍尔木兹的依赖程度较低，但欧洲经济仍仰赖全球航运能顺畅运行。欧洲官员说，这场冲突正迫使盟友重新思考如何保护海上通道。

官员称，如果美国被视为不愿或无力维持关键水道开放，各国可能不得不承担更大风险，并调整兵力部署方式，做好准备缓冲红海或南中国海等其他脆弱航运路线可能受到的冲击。

菲律宾外交政策分析师皮特洛说：“战后若由伊朗控制霍尔木兹海峡，将彻底改变游戏规则。美国作为关键水道通行无阻的航行担保人，信誉将受损。”

分析：特朗普反复威胁要放弃霍尔木兹 动摇国际对美信心

2026年4月6日 18:58 / 联合早报

霍尔木兹海峡承载着全球约五分之一的石油流量，伊朗封锁这条关键航道后，全球油价飙涨。图为4月3日，巴基斯坦卡拉奇一家加油站内的情景，电单车骑士和驾车人士在石油运输受阻后，竞相排队赶着添油。 （法新社）

（华盛顿彭博电）中东冲突爆发以来，面对伊朗牢牢钳制且似在无限拖延战事，美国总统特朗普多次威胁要放弃保护霍尔木兹海峡；这番表态犹如彻底背离美国数十年来维护海上航道畅通的政策，动摇世界对美国的信心。

全球价值35万亿美元（约45万亿新元）的商品贸易，八成通过海运运输。霍尔木兹海峡则承载着全球约五分之一的石油流量。因此，哪怕美国只恫言要降低对霍尔木兹海峡的安全保障，也可能动摇世界经济支柱，以及美国自身的财富与权力根基。

自二战以来，美国长期凭借海军力量，在全球公海威慑袭击、打击海盗，力阻任何国家企图限制公海合法通行。这些安全保障，使石油、商品和原材料，足以在极少摩擦与冲突之下，顺畅地跨境流通。

美国退役海军中将米勒说：“维护霍尔木兹海峡商业航运自由通行，是这场冲突攸关的更为重大的原则问题。若无法保障霍尔木兹海峡的航行自由，全球各地的航行自由都将面临风险。”

美国能否有效管控战争后果 各国疑虑加剧

欧洲和亚洲一些官员受访时说，这场冲突已削弱各国对美国作为公海保护者的信任，引发对能源价格的担忧，改变了关键咽喉要道周围的安全考量，并加深对华盛顿能否有效管控战争后果的疑虑。

五角大楼发言人受询时未直接回答美国是否仍承诺确保航行自由，仅表明军方“仍在就霍尔木兹海峡问题，为总统提供多种选项”。

在美国缺乏明确方案的情况下，一些依赖贸易的小国正推动建立多国联合应对机制。阿联酋星期二（3月31日）呼吁联合国授权采取包括武力的选项来重开霍尔木兹海峡；英国星期四（4月2日）召集40多个美国盟友代表，商讨以非军事手段说服德黑兰恢复贸易。

根据《联合国海洋法公约》确立的原则，霍尔木兹海峡和马六甲海峡等咽喉要道的船舶自由通行权受到保护。美国虽不是缔约国，但它在条约起草过程中发挥了关键作用，美国海军也一直是这些规则的主要执行者。

这些规则包括禁止沿海国对在公海之间航行的船只实施管制，即使航线穿过本国领海也一样。伊朗试图阻止船只在霍尔木兹海峡通行，或向商船收取“通行费”，都是对这一体系的公然挑战。

对此，特朗普时而主张由美国控制这条水道，时而又建议让其他国家承担相关责任。

航运和石油市场分析人士指出，即使战火平息，混乱局面也可能持续。因为若停火协议未包含重启海峡通行的具体计划，这一战略动脉，恐将长期受控于德黑兰，延长冲击效应。

美国外交政策研究所国家安全项目非常驻高级研究员萨利斯伯里说：“如果美国连霍尔木兹海峡的航行自由都无法保障，那还怎么阻止中国海军在南中国海进一步推进？这是个令人担忧的先例。”

美国立场摇摆 促各国重构安全战略

美国立场摇摆不定，已开始影响各国对安全战略的思考。

官员说，这可能促使各国在马六甲海峡等咽喉要道周边加强安保实力，并更紧密协调以维护国际法下的海洋规范。当前冲突也反映，只要军力够硬、政治意愿够强，就可能控制关键水道。

欧洲对霍尔木兹的依赖程度较低，但欧洲经济仍仰赖全球航运能顺畅运行。欧洲官员说，这场冲突正迫使盟友重新思考如何保护海上通道。

官员称，如果美国被视为不愿或无力维持关键水道开放，各国可能不得不承担更大风险，并调整兵力部署方式，做好准备缓冲红海或南中国海等其他脆弱航运路线可能受到的冲击。

菲律宾外交政策分析师皮特洛说：“战后若由伊朗控制霍尔木兹海峡，将彻底改变游戏规则。美国作为关键水道通行无阻的航行担保人，信誉将受损。”

How a trash-talking, meme-posting great-grandmother pulled Virginia into a fight that could define the midterms

2026-04-06T11:00:55.684Z / CNN

Portsmouth, Virginia—

L. Louise Lucas was attending a conference in Boston last summer for state legislators when she learned that a group of Texas Democrats were in town after fleeing their home state to try to block a Republican gerrymander done at President Donald Trump’s behest.

Lucas, the president pro tempore of the Virginia Senate, made her way to City Hall to attend their news conference. Before the event was over, Lucas had concluded that Virginia needed to join the fight — and said so.

Her Virginia House counterpart found out later.

“I was like, ‘Whoa, lady, what are you doing?’” Speaker Don Scott, a close ally, told CNN recently. At the time, Scott said, he was focused on winning more state legislative seats that fall and wanted to avoid any redistricting talk that could “throw a monkey wrench in our election.”

But Lucas was insistent. “We’ve got to fight fire with fire,” she recounted telling Scott.

In the end, the 82-year-old great-grandmother, who rose from a childhood in the Jim Crow South to become one of the most powerful figures in Virginia politics, helped push through what could be one of the most extreme political gerrymanders of the 2026 election cycle. The map she and other Democrats want voters to back in an April 21 referendum could help their party win 10 of Virginia’s 11 US House seats in November.

Currently, Democrats hold six of those seats and Republicans five. Opponents are fighting back by citing top Democrats’ past statements supporting nonpartisan US House maps, and recent polling shows the state is closely divided ahead of the referendum.

A new Virginia map could help determine which party wins control of the US House in November’s midterm elections. A Democratic-led House would be able to block Trump’s legislative agenda and open new investigations of him and his policies in the final two years of his presidency — underscoring Trump’s urgency in pushing Republican-led states to redraw their maps outside of the once-a-decade norm.

Much of Virginia’s Democratic Party establishment wanted to go for eight or nine seats rather than 10. Lucas framed it as a binary choice: “Why would we go through all this for an 8-3 map?” she said.

“This is about pushing back on Donald Trump having what I consider unchecked control of the Congress because they don’t have backbone enough to push against him,” she told CNN. “I know a lot of folks really like their members of Congress, but they don’t have the backbone to do the job.”

To help advance the map ultimately put on the ballot, Lucas wielded her raw power as the chair of the Senate’s Finance and Appropriations Committee and trolled Democrats and Republicans alike with “10-1” memes and a dose of profanity.

Lucas has developed an online following among Democrats hungry for open confrontation with the Trump administration and leaders of their own party.

Consider her response to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s criticism of Virginia’s 10-1 map as a “brazen abuse of power.”

“You all started it and we f**king finished it,” she fired back on X.

Lucas’ trash-talking also extends to any Democrats she views as thwarting her goals. One Lucas post compared Virginia’s two Democratic US senators to cuckolds and warned them to stay out of the state legislature’s redistricting deliberations.

A Republican strategist in Virginia who opposes both Lucas’ policy moves and her online activity said the 10-1 map now before voters underscores that “she completely controls what’s happening in Virginia right now.”

The strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid a confrontation with Lucas, said her actions on social media deserve condemnation, not celebration. “Don’t glamorize her.”

Lucas, who has represented her native city of Portsmouth in the state legislature for more than three decades, takes pride in talking and acting tough — an outgrowth, she said, of a life facing and overcoming obstacles.

She had her first child at age 14. As a young woman, she joined the apprenticeship program at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and became the first woman shipfitter there, each day walking her welding materials up the plank to the ships that loomed over Portsmouth’s waterfront.

“There were catcalls and all that kind of stuff” from the men she worked with, she recalled. “I gave them the middle finger a lot of days with the words that go along with it. You had to be tough. You had to dish it out.”

“I speak two languages,” Lucas joked. “I speak English, and I speak shipyard.”

Lucas said she was shaped by her upbringing in Portsmouth, the eldest of her parents’ seven children. On a ride through its tidy Olde Towne district, she points out the locations of long-gone landmarks like The Famous, a high-end department store where she remembers her mother, Lillie Boone, could not try on hats at a time when segregation still held sway.

Her teen pregnancy with her son, Jeffrey, interrupted, but did not end her education. She finished school, worked in the shipyards and went on to earn two degrees from Norfolk State University, an HBCU just across the Elizabeth River from her hometown.

She entered politics as a member of the Portsmouth City Council after an 18-year career with the federal government. Lucas is now the longest-serving senator in the General Assembly.

Today, parts of Portsmouth bear her mark.

L. Louise Lucas Drive leads visitors to the Rivers Casino, the fruit of legislation she championed to boost employment in a city where the median income is less than half that of northern Virginia cities like Arlington.

Then, there’s the Lucas Professional Center, a low-slung brick building about 4 miles from the casino that is the hub of her various private enterprises. They include group homes for developmentally disabled adults, a fleet of vans and a cannabis shop managed by her grandson that sells marijuana-themed T-shirts and mango- and cherry-flavored CBD slushies.

She co-sponsored legislation that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana for adults. She is eager to apply for a license to sell next year.

She brushes aside a question about whether running a pot business presents an ethical conflict, given her legislative role.

“There was nothing written into the law that said I couldn’t get a license,” Lucas responded. “I should have thought about that when I did the bill for the casino, but I didn’t. So I said, ‘That’s not going to happen this time.’”

It’s clear that she revels in her reputation as a fighter. She owns several pairs of Everlast boxing gloves in an array of colors, a campaign gimmick from a few years ago that has become part of her warrior persona.

“Where are your gloves?” a casino employee asked, jokingly, as Lucas walked briskly among the slot machines on a recent weekday visit to Rivers, her flowing turquoise dress gently billowing in her wake.

For those who have heard of Lucas outside of Portsmouth or the state Capitol in Richmond, it may be due to the memes.

One cartoon-style image shows her pulling US Rep. Rob Wittman out of reach of the chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee. Wittman, the committee’s vice chair, is poised to lead the panel next year if Republicans retain control of the chamber. But he is among the Republicans whose reelection chances could be endangered by the proposed map.

Lucas said she’s influenced by the young people around her — interns, grandchildren and others — who send her ideas to consider. “I don’t have a friend who’s my age,” she said. “They’re all retired or dead.”

She bounces many of her social media posts off Ben Tribbett, a political consultant who has worked with her for more than 20 years. He said he sometimes encourages her to take “it down a notch,” but Lucas doesn’t always heed his advice.

While her staff will post on her behalf, Lucas said she approves of everything that appears on her feeds.

Her 62-year-old daughter Lisa Lucas-Burke, a former Portsmouth City Council member who’s running for the office again this year, said her mother’s social media habits keep her glued to her phone.

“I keep telling her, ‘Can we put the phone down for at least the dinner hour?’”

For all her social media notoriety, Lucas’ real power derives from her perch atop the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee. It’s something she famously wielded against then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin two years ago to kill the Republican’s plans for a $2 billion financial package for a pro sports arena in northern Virginia.

She argued the teams’ owners needed to foot the bill and derisively referred to the project as the “Glenn Dome.”

(Asked for comment about Lucas, Youngkin spokesman Justin Discigil told CNN that the former governor “will never dignify Louise Lucas’ pathetic trolling on social media with a response.”)

Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, said Virginia powerbrokers understand that if “you want something out of the legislature, figure out a way to get Sen. Lucas on board.”

“Because if you don’t, you won’t get very far,” he added.

Lucas likes to invoke the arena episode as proof of her influence.

For instance, in a text earlier this year to Scott that she also shared with Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s chief of staff, Lucas declared she would boycott any more meetings about map proposals because, she argued, the “governor and her staff are hell bent on doing anything other than 10-1 map.”

“Let me be clear: I am about to go freaking Glenn Dome on their ass because nothing else will make sense,” she added in the text, which she showed to CNN.

Lucas said she made Spanberger’s team aware of the correspondence with the speaker because she likes to be upfront in all her political maneuvers. “I don’t throw over a rock and hide my hand,” she said. “If I hit you in the head, I want you to know I did it.”

In a statement to CNN, a Spanberger spokesperson indicated that any pushback from the governor’s office to a 10-1 plan centered only on the technical difficulties of carrying out elections using some of the maps initially proposed by legislators.

“As the House of Delegates and Senate went through their process of drawing a new map,” the statement read, “the Governor’s principal goal was to make sure that map could successfully be implemented by Virginia’s elections administrators given the constraints of Virginia’s data system and the short timeline before them — and multiple 10-1 maps initially proposed by the General Assembly could not.”

Spanberger “personally understands the urgency of winning congressional seats as a check on the president,” the statement added, and is urging Virginians to support the referendum.

The maximalist approach pushed by Lucas and others may have been a bridge too far for many Virginians.

A Washington Post poll released Friday showed likely voters favoring the map by a 5-point margin, but found that Republicans and map opponents were far more enthusiastic about casting ballots than Democrats and redistricting backers.

Additionally, Virginians were divided over whether it’s fair to create 10 Democratic-friendly districts. Forty-four percent said the map was a fair representation of Virginia’s political leanings; 48% responded that it was unfair.

Republican US Rep. Ben Cline, whose Shenandoah Valley district would be splintered under the proposed map, has barnstormed the state in recent weeks trying to drum up the “no” vote. The map seeks to flip four seats by snaking districts out from Democratic areas in the Washington, DC, suburbs into rural parts of the state, although the new district boundaries do not guarantee a full Democratic sweep of those seats.

“It’s really insulting to the people of Virginia and insulting to the folks in rural areas like the ones I represent, who are seeing the Shenandoah Valley cut into five different districts and parceled out like candy to even out these districts out of northern Virginia,” Cline said.

His Stop the Gerrymander nonprofit is one of several groups now active in the campaign against the map.

As of Friday afternoon, Democrats still had an enormous spending advantage on the airwaves, pumping $33.6 million into the “yes” campaign to $3.3 million by Republicans, according to data from the political-ad tracking firm, AdImpact. House Speaker Mike Johnson is set to attend a fundraiser in Virginia later this week for the opposition effort, and another opposition group, Virginians For Fair Maps, received $5 million on the last day of March from an affiliated nonprofit.

Back in Portsmouth, neatly arranged flyers outside Lucas’ office feature a picture of former President Barack Obama, urging Virginians to vote “yes” on the map to “stop the MAGA power grab.”

Scott, the House speaker, said he would see it as “poetic justice” if he and Lucas — two African Americans who both overcame adversity to rise to positions of power in Virginia — helped their party prevail over Trump in the national redistricting battle.

“It’s really a testament to the endurance and faith of the Black community that we’re here,” he said. “We have to stand up in this moment.”

CNN’s David Wright contributed to this report.

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Liam Conejo Ramos constantly worries about being detained by ICE again, his parents say: “My boy is very different”

April 6, 2026 / 7:14 AM EDT / CBS News

By Camilo Montoya-Galvez Immigration Correspondent
Minneapolis— Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, whose detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement sparked global outrage earlier this year, constantly worries about being detained once again, his parents told CBS News in an exclusive interview.

It’s been over two months since Liam was taken into ICE custody in Minnesota, alongside his father, while wearing a blue bunny hat and his school backpack — a moment captured by photos and videos that reignited America’s polarizing debate over immigration enforcement. But his parents, in their first in-person interview, said their son remains deeply scarred by his experiences in ICE detention.

Liam Conejo Ramos on April 5, 2026 in Minneapolis. CBS News

Adrián Conejo Arias, Liam’s father, said his son now regularly sees a psychologist.

“As parents, it worries us a lot that he’s no longer as he was before and we’re worried this could last a long time,” Conejo Arias said during an interview in Spanish on Sunday in Minneapolis. “It does worry us that this will not heal quickly.”

Liam’s mother, Erika Ramos, said he’s been exhibiting signs of psychological trauma, including hypervigilance and isolation.

“My boy is very different,” she added.

He’s more prone to acting up and behaving badly, she said. In school, Ramos added, Liam, once a playful and happy kid, no longer wants to go to certain classes or play with other children.

“He sees police officers, and he says, ‘It’s ICE, Mommy,’” Erika Ramos said.

Adrián Conejo Arias, Liam Conejo Ramos and Erika Ramos in Minneapolis on April 5, 2026. CBS News

After spending two weeks at an ICE holding facility in Texas earlier this year, Liam and his father were released after a scathing ruling from a federal judge who said their detention had its “genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”

But the family remains in legal peril, and is at risk of potentially being detained a second time and ultimately deported.

The federal government has continued to pursue the family’s deportation, recently terminating their asylum case and appealing the federal court order that allowed Liam and his father to be released from ICE custody.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Liam’s family was ordered deported by an immigration judge after receiving “full due process.” The department urged parents like Liam’s to self-deport alongside their children.

Asked what scares him the most, Liam said, “la inmigración,” a term used by Spanish speakers to describe federal immigration agents.

“An injustice”

Images of the Jan. 20 ICE operation that led to Liam and his father being taken into custody made international headlines at a time when the Trump administration was facing intensifying scrutiny over a massive deployment of federal immigration agents in the Minneapolis area.

The administration later scaled back that campaign, called Operation Metro Surge, after the killings of U.S. citizens and Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of ICE and Border Patrol agents, triggered bipartisan backlash.

At the time, ICE said the intended target of the operation that led to Liam’s detention was his father, who the agency accused of being in the U.S. illegally. The family said they entered the U.S. in 2023, with the government’s permission, under a Biden administration program for asylum-seekers, known as CBP One, that President Trump’s administration shut down immediately after he returned to the White House.

ICE also said Conejo Arias tried to evade arrest and abandoned Liam in the process. During Sunday’s interview, Conejo Arias categorically rejected the accusation.

“It’s not true what people are saying,” he said. Asked directly if he would abandon Liam, Conejo Arias said, “I never did and never would.”

Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrián Conejo Arias, on April 5, 2026. CBS News

ICE also said it tried to get Liam’s mother to take him, and that she refused.

Ramos said she did not open the door out of concerns she too would be detained. She said she thought about who would care for her other son, 13-year-old Tadeo, who was still in school at the time. Ramos added she believed ICE was using Liam as “bait” to arrest her.

Liam and his father were ultimately transferred to the Dilley family detention center in Texas, where they were held alongside other families with children. Conejo Arias called the time there “horrible,” saying the medical care was inadequate and that the food made Liam and other detainees sick.

“The most difficult thing was I couldn’t do anything,” Ramos said of the time her husband and son were in ICE custody.

“My desperation was to go and get them out, because I really did not understand why,” she said, crying.

While she’s happy her family is back together again in Minnesota, Ramos, who is pregnant with another boy, said their lives have not been the same since her husband and son’s detention. She said she longs for some “peace” and the chance for the family to live and work in the U.S., without the specter of deportation.

But Danielle Molliver, the family’s lawyer, said they could very well face deportation if the appeal of the asylum case’s termination fails. And if the Justice Department’s move to suspend the lower court order that led to Liam’s release succeeds, the family could be detained by ICE again.

That is Conejo Arias’ biggest concern, alongside his son’s mental health. He said he’s still trying to understand why his family was targeted for deportation.

“I think it was an injustice that they did that to us, when in reality we were doing everything right,” he said.

伊朗：美军营救行动或为“窃取浓缩铀”做掩护

2026年4月6日 19:27 / 联合早报

美军一架F-15E战斗机4月3日在伊朗境内被击落。美军特种部队随后冒险深入伊朗山区，最终成功救出战斗机上的第二名机组人员。 （法新社）

伊朗外交部说，美国日前展开的营救坠机飞行员行动，可能是“从伊朗窃取浓缩铀”的掩护。

法新社报道，美方在一场搜救行动中，找回日前在伊朗境内坠毁的F-15E战机上的第二名机组人员。

伊朗军方将这一营救行动定性为“欺骗和逃逸行动”，并称行动已被“完全挫败”。

外交部发言人巴加埃（Esmaeil Baqaei）星期一（4月6日）说，围绕这次行动“存在许多疑点和不确定之处”。

他指出，美方声称飞行员所在的西南部科吉卢耶-博韦艾哈迈德省（Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad），与美军在伊朗中部尝试或计划投放兵力的地点“相距甚远”。

巴加埃说：“绝不能排除这种可能性，这是一场以窃取浓缩铀为目的的佯动行动。”

伊朗：美军营救行动或为“窃取浓缩铀”做掩护

2026年4月6日 19:27 / 联合早报

美军一架F-15E战斗机4月3日在伊朗境内被击落。美军特种部队随后冒险深入伊朗山区，最终成功救出战斗机上的第二名机组人员。 （法新社）

伊朗外交部说，美国日前展开的营救坠机飞行员行动，可能是“从伊朗窃取浓缩铀”的掩护。

法新社报道，美方在一场搜救行动中，找回日前在伊朗境内坠毁的F-15E战机上的第二名机组人员。

伊朗军方将这一营救行动定性为“欺骗和逃逸行动”，并称行动已被“完全挫败”。

外交部发言人巴加埃（Esmaeil Baqaei）星期一（4月6日）说，围绕这次行动“存在许多疑点和不确定之处”。

他指出，美方声称飞行员所在的西南部科吉卢耶-博韦艾哈迈德省（Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad），与美军在伊朗中部尝试或计划投放兵力的地点“相距甚远”。

巴加埃说：“绝不能排除这种可能性，这是一场以窃取浓缩铀为目的的佯动行动。”

中国驻沙特使馆：不随意拍摄不在社交媒体传播相关信息

2026年4月6日 15:24 / 联合早报

中国驻沙特阿拉伯大使馆星期一（4月6日）称，中东紧张局势加剧，战事扩大风险进一步升高，并呼吁在沙特的中国公民远离敏感区域，不随意拍摄，不在社交媒体传播相关信息。

中国驻沙特大使馆在微信公众号发消息称，当前中东紧张局势加剧，战事扩大风险进一步升高，有关方宣称本地区石油、电力等基础设施可能成为重要打击目标。

中国驻沙特大使馆说，再次提醒在沙中国公民密切关注安全形势和沙有关部门发布的相关公告和警报，遵守当地法律法规，切实增强安全防范意识，减少外出。

中国驻沙特大使馆也呼吁，远离敏感区域，不随意拍摄，不在社交媒体传播相关信息。保持冷静，如遇紧急情况，及时采取就地避难等措施，报警并联系大使馆、中国驻吉达总领馆寻求协助。

美国总统特朗普星期天（4月5日）在社交媒体上发布带有粗话的贴文，继续对伊朗施压。他写道：“伊朗星期二（4月7日）将同时迎来发电厂日和桥梁日，情况将是前所未见的！打开海峡吧，你们这些疯狂的混蛋，否则你们将陷入地狱——等着瞧！”

特朗普稍后接受福克斯新闻访问时称，伊朗正和美国谈判，双方很有可能在星期一达成协议。他警告：“如果他们不迅速达成协议，我会考虑炸毁一切，接管他们的石油。”

特朗普早前限伊朗在美东时间星期一晚8时（新加坡时间星期二上午8时）前，达成停战协议或开放霍尔木兹海峡。他上星期六（4月4日）发文提醒：“时间不多了——还有48小时，地狱将降临到他们头上。”